Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Finally, after months and months of waiting, we got to taste what Omaha's very own vegan restaurant, Modern Love, had to offer! They have not officially opened yet (next week, August 5th and we will be there that night too ~ they are already booked up for like 2-3 weeks out on Open Table), but we got in on a sneak tasting with our Vegan Omaha Meetup group tonight!

Happy Birthday (a day late) to me! Let's celebrate!!

I matched her colors (on purpose). ;)

Some of the restaurant crew! Isa, the owner of the restaurant is on the far right with her back to me.

Rosemary Lemonade. Delish!

We had assigned seating and we were placed next to this very nice couple! Danielle and Scott. We had a very enjoyable time talking with them throughout dinner!

We got one dish of each thing to share amongst the 4 of us. They put up with all my picture taking and were very patient with me!

We each got to have our own "shot". It was like a cold soup. It tasted like corn on the cob. I don't know what it was made out of, but it was yummy! *UPDATE* I found out what it was! Corn milk with chili oil, lime and cilantro flowers on top! Fun, different and yummy! Felt like I was at a swanky upscale restaurant....oh wait, we were!!!

These were Jalapeño Corn Fritters over tomato jam, arugula and fresh basil. I am not a fan of spicy hot, but even though these have jalapanos in them, since they were roasted, it cut the heat and they had just the right amount of kick. Soft and tasty! Really good!

Isa talking with our waitress.

This was her take on a Cesar Salad. It had quinoa and pine nuts, tempeh 'croutons' and bacon eggplant. The whole salad and dressing were delicious and the bacon eggplant pieces were very good. They did have a smokey flavor, just like bacon!

This dish was called Mac N Shews. Isa's take on macaroni and cheese, but made with cashew cream cheese and a bunch of other yummy spices. It came along side a pecan crusted tofu, BBQ cauliflower and braised, garlicy kale.

The BBQ Cauliflower had a smoky, tangy kick sauce on it. They were different and wonderful. Everyone liked it!

The tofu or like I like to say "vegan pork chop" was extremely good. Great texture, not rubbery or dry, it was fabulous.

This dish was the Seitan Marsala. It tasted like Mushroom Stroganoff. This was a root vegetable mash on the bottom, mushrooms, fresh herbs and micro green sprouts. The sprouts gave it such a fresh, earthy taste. The Seitan had grill marks and tasted very good, rich and 'meaty'. This was Vernon's favorite dish of the night. Everyone in the place was raving about this dish. Definitely a comfort food!

This is John. He is the head of the Vegan Meetup group, Vegan Omaha fb and has his own blog, The Laziest Vegan in the World, and he's Isa's boyfriend. I had to take his pict, because he is not in very many himself. He is always behind the camera! Such a nice guy. He does so much for the local vegan peeps!

This was the Vanilla Bean Peach Pie. It was supposed to come with Ginger Ice Cream, but ours did not. We got the luckiest plate in the joint. It had a vegan marshmallow ice cream on it.

Lets just get a better look at this, shall we? After every bite, I was trying to get right back to that creamy, chunky, fluffy scoop of Heaven before Vernon could get to it (hee hee hee). That was MINE. There were huge chunks of VEGAN marshmallows and cashew pieces in it surrounded by fluffy, airy (weirdly ~ did not seem very cold) ice cream with chewy, candied ginger curls on top. Oh. My. GOD. Seriously people, this was THE best ice cream vegan or non vegan that I have EVER had in my entire life. What was Casie's favorite thing of the night? Hands down, no doubt this little scoop of creamy goodness. But everything really was delicious. I am so excited for the rest of Omaha to taste how freaking good eating vegan can be!

The walls look like they have wall paper on them, but it all was hand painted with stencils! Very detailed work and very 'modern'!

I had to get a pict. with my celebrity chef, Ms. Isa herself! Vernon's lucky I didn't bust out my 'Isa Does It' cookbook to have her sign it right then and there! It was wonderful of her to bring this exciting all vegan restaurant to OMAHA of all places! Thank you Isa! Dinner was fabulous! We can't wait to be back EVERY month to try the new monthly menus with seasonal veggies / produce! You rock!!!

Still finishing up the outside sign painting!

We had such a fun night with great food and meeting new friends. We can't wait to go back next week on opening night! How exciting!!! Book your table today on Open Table. Let's get the word out that Vegan food can taste fabulous and support her awesome restaurant!!!

Cardiologist Kim A. Williams, M.D., the next president of American College of Cardiology, adopted a plant-based diet. After seeing great results, he’s recommending his patients do the same.

Check out his article:

In this guest blog, Kim A. Williams, MD, a cardiologist at Rush University in Chicago and the next president of the American College of Cardiology, explains why he went vegan and now recommends it to patients.

Physicians want to influence their patients to make lifestyle changes that will improve their health, but sometimes the roles are reversed and we are inspired by patients. It was a patient's success reversing an alarming condition that motivated me to investigate a vegan diet.

Just before the American College of Cardiology's (ACC) annual meeting in 2003 I learned that my LDL cholesterol level was 170. It was clear that I needed to change something. Six months earlier, I had read a nuclear scan on a patient with very-high-risk findings -- a severe three-vessel disease pattern of reversible ischemia.

The patient came back to the nuclear lab just before that 2003 ACC meeting. She had been following Dean Ornish, MD's program for "Reversing Heart Disease," which includes a plant-based diet, exercise, and meditation. She said that her chest pain had resolved in about 6 weeks, and her scan had become essentially normalized on this program.

When I got that LDL result, I looked up the details of the plant-based diet in Ornish's publications -- 1- and 5-year angiographic outcomes and marked improvement on PET perfusion scanning -- small numbers of patients, but outcomes that reached statistical significance.

I often discuss the benefits of adopting a plant-based diet with patients who have high cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension, or coronary artery disease. I encourage these patients to go to the grocery store and sample different plant-based versions of many of the basic foods they eat. For me, some of the items, such as chicken and egg substitutes, were actually better-tasting.

There are dozens of products to sample and there will obviously be some that you like and some that you don't. One of my favorite sampling venues was the new Tiger Stadium (Comerica Park) in Detroit, where there are five vegan items, including an Italian sausage that is hard to distinguish from real meat until you check your blood pressure -- vegan protein makes blood pressures fall.

In some parts of country and some parts of world, finding vegan restaurants can be a challenge. But in most places, it is pretty easy to find vegan-friendly options with a little local Web searching. Web searching can also help with the patients who are concerned about taste or missing their favorite foods. I typically search with the patient and quickly email suggestions.

Interestingly, our ACC/American Heart Association (AHA) prevention guidelines do not specifically recommend a vegan diet, as the studies are very large and observational or small and randomized, such as those on Ornish's whole food, plant-based diet intervention reversing coronary artery stenosis. The data are very compelling, but larger randomized trials are needed to pass muster with our rigorous guideline methodology.

Wouldn't it be a laudable goal of the American College of Cardiology to put ourselves out of business within a generation or two? We have come a long way in prevention of cardiovascular disease, but we still have a long way to go. Improving our lifestyles with improved diet and exercise will help us get there.

We ordered a cup of the soup that night to split so we could try it. It was a jerk zucchini with lime oil and pineapple. We really, really liked it and it was just enough for us to share and get a taste! Excellent flavors!

We ordered the Vegetarian Lahvosh that they left off the cheese and sauce. It was ok. Basically a crispy cracker with a few veggies and artichokes on the top.

The Falafel Cakes were grilled and served over cucumbers, tomatoes, kalamata olives and lettuce. It originally came with feta cheese and yogurt sauce, but they left those off. These were pretty dry. We have definitely had better falafel cakes (Victors and Amsterdam are both extremely better).

Black Bean Cakes seared and served over pickled vegetables with chipotle aioli. They did have sour cream in them though. They were also just ok. Nothing too spectacular.

The pickled vegetable underneath were pretty good. They had a little kick to them.

This was on the speciality menu that they have going

for two weeks. The Seared Beet Cakes. Now these were really, really good. They did taste a little beety, but it wasn't over powering and they were so beautiful. The flavors they had with it were really good. Orange scented yellow beets, spiced nuts and cara cara orate vinegar. Vernon and I both loved these.

Our next stop was Borgata Brewery Company. They had a band playing, called Buca Ruse and they were really good. It was a lot of fun! We saw some parents of Sophie's classmates there and it was nice to chat with them and catch up since we hadn't seen them since the end of the school year. We had a fabulous time there, too.

We stopped at Caffeine Dreams on the way home to get a Two Birds Bakery muffin for a vegan dessert. They were pretty good.

Best compliment of the night...Vernon said I was aging well! So sweet! We had a great night out together.

While I am a Doctor of Optometry, I'm not a Medical Doctor. Although my posts contain discussions regarding diet, exercise and nutrition, it is not meant as medical advice. Every individual has unique health circumstances and conditions and should seek the guidance of a Medical Doctor prior to making any changes in diet or exercise. While I love comments on this blog and emails, no medical or dietary questions will be answered here or via email. Please consult a Medical Doctor in your area for your specific questions. The information contained in these posts are for general informational purposes only.